This article examines Türkiye’s evolving role in post-Asad Syria through the theoretical lens of offensive realism. After December 2024, Türkiye has acted as the most assertive external power, employing a combination of military, economic, and diplomatic instruments to shape Syria’s transition. Militarily, Ankara has restructured Syrian armed forces, supported proxy groups, and advanced plans for long-term basing and defence-industrial cooperation, while simultaneously seeking to eliminate Kurdish autonomy along its southern frontier. Economically, Türkiye has embedded Syria’s reconstruction, energy recovery, and trade flows into its own networks, using refugee repatriation as both a humanitarian initiative and a tool of strategic leverage. The analysis concludes that Türkiye has emerged not merely as a stabilizer but as the principal architect of Syria’s post-war order, advancing a long-term project of hegemonic consolidation with enduring consequences for Middle Eastern geopolitics.
Agata Maria Karbowska (2025) studied this question.